


Arsonist's lullaby

by Pickl3lily



Series: KillerWave to feel something - oneshots [1]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Cutting, F/M, Gen, M/M, Self-Harm, Trigger Warning!!!, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, mostly narrative, not graphic, some dialogue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-23
Updated: 2016-03-23
Packaged: 2018-05-28 15:44:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6334801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pickl3lily/pseuds/Pickl3lily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU after Season 1 finale (ish)<br/>After losing Ronnie again, Caitlin feels numb and she can't find a way to feel the way that she should and starts to feel as if her heart is turning to ice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Arsonist's lullaby

**Author's Note:**

> So I wrote this while I should be doing university work - shame on me!  
> Its kind of AU-ish after season 1, but mostly because I couldn't be bothered to work in S2 storyline.  
> I hope this doesn't trigger anyone as its not graphic, but if you are easily triggered maybe give it a miss, I guess... This was mostly a way to cope with my own experiences right now and project my issues onto Caitlin, (minus relationship drama).

It starts on a Tuesday. Nothing remarkable about the day, the setting was her bedroom – unremarkable. The silver letter opener she had pricked her thumb with was nothing to glance at twice, not really. The most remarkable thing was the blood trickling from her thumb onto her cream carpet – from the cut she couldn’t feel. She was numb, and she had known that she was becoming colder and more disassociated from her friends, but with Ronnie gone she now found herself craving something they couldn’t give her.

She didn’t even know what she needed at first – besides the miraculous return of her husband. For weeks she held the letter opener and made small slices on parts of her skin that she could easily hide – thighs, stomach – anywhere she could marvel at the release of blood with the lack of feeling that should accompany it. It was another unremarkable day, Wednesday this time, when she finds what she needs.

Making her morning tea in an old fashioned kettle on the stove, one inherited from her grandmother, she finds herself distracted – the glint of a knife is catching her eye and she’s a doctor – she knows that she shouldn’t do this, that she’s allowing herself to turn down a road she shouldn’t and that she should ask for help, seek support. But its like an ice is forming in her chest, because she can’t bring herself to care. The kettle whistles, but doesn’t fully snap her out of her reverie; she’s used to performing day-to-day tasks in a haze now, un-feeling and just going through the motions. She’s still staring at the knife as she goes to reach for the kettle and pour the water when she clasps her hand around something and lets out a strangled shriek, yanking her hand away from the metal spout she had thoughtlessly grasped, and it isn’t until she has the hand under the cold tap, assessing the damage that she realises her heart is thumping rapidly away in her chest, her breathing slightly elevated and her brain working a mile-a-minute to consider the situation. To consider that for the first time since Ronnie died, _again_ , that she felt alive. That she _felt_.

 

After that, she didn’t touch a knife – the temptation still there, curious to see whether it would hurt now, whether she could feel again, but she doesn’t allow herself to slip – the burn had given her perspective. Of sorts. Luckily, her hand wouldn’t be too bad but there was probably going to be a scar. The thought made her smile before she remembered words spoken into her ear by another man of fire “ _The fire_ _revealed my true self, showed me who I really am_ ”. Her thoughts of blades disappeared and she pressed on the healing burns, creating a riptide of pain that made her gasp and her eyelids flutter shut while she thought of the man who had tried before to make her see how revealing the flames could be.

A light chuckle escaped her as she recalled the conversation – calling him sick, his enquiry as to whether or not she considered herself being the sick one. Maybe she was sick. But maybe she was more like him than she thought. It amazing how much you can fear fire until you’re heart seems so frozen that its almost as if you need to find heat – to leach it from others and leave them as frozen and alone as you feel.

 

 

 

Mick was pissed, he loved the Snarts dearly, or as much as he could considering their lack of appreciation for fire – but there had to be limits. If it wasn’t bad enough that Lisa had taken to leaving her lacy under things where he could see them without being able to touch the merchandise they ‘covered’, Len had decided to bring back some overly-chipper twink who got _stains_ on the couch and after moving their activities to bedroom, the kid decided to be so Vocal, that he wouldn’t be surprised if team flash could hear them all the way up in their ivory tower. He glared at the CSI badge in his hand – of course it would be a _badge_ , and focused on committing the face and name to memory so that if he ever ran into this ‘Barry Allen’, then he could punch him for staining the couch and buy him a drink for making it okay to set fire to the couch.

He was so pissed and distracted by his ire, that as he briskly rounded the corner to Saints and Sinners, he was unable to avoid the woman walking just as quickly at him, distracted by a bandage on her hand. The pair clattered together, the woman falling to the ground with the badge while he glared down at her.

“Oh I’m so sorry, I just – wait Barry?” She began hurtling her apologies at him before picking up the badge to return to him, recognition obvious on her face before her eyes met his and they each realised who they’d bumped into. Mick’s hand flew to his gun, not pulling it but going on alert as her face became impassive and she rose to her feet. “Don’t worry doc. Not on a job, just want a drink – or drinks till I can’t remember hearing Len making that twink scream so loud.” He tilted his head minutely towards the badge she held in her hand, moving towards her coat pocket, and watched as her eyes widened in shock, lips falling slightly apart and expected her to protest, to insult him, anything. Anything except flit her eyes to his gun, and her tongue to dart fleetingly out to wet her lips – a movement so fast she probably given the Flash a run for his money.

He didn’t miss the way her eyes came alive, could have sworn he saw fire dancing in them, or the way her now empty hand grasped the bandaged one and she let out a little exhalation that could have been a sigh, or a muttered curse. He certainly didn’t miss the way she took a step forward, so they were practically chest-to-chest and she couldn’t have missed the way his body tensed as she slowly eased out a hand to put his collar slightly down for her hand to slip under the material, onto a burn.

He grasped her wrist in what he knew was a grip too tight for such a fragile looking woman, but she didn’t protest, struggle, try to break free. She just stood on tip toes and levelled him with an even stare before the side of her mouth quirked just slightly in what could passably be called a smirk. “You were right.” The words were hushed, breathed against his face and the mixed scent of mint and coffee wafted under his nose. “Fire. It showed me a glimpse of who I am; it gave me feeling when the world made me numb and I _understand_ now.”

He hadn’t realised he had closed his eyes and relaxed his body posture until he felt her presence slip away and heard the soft clicking of her heels walking away from him. He slammed his eyes open and reached out to grab her hand – the bandaged one and she let out a noise of pain but her face when he whirled her around showed nothing but pleasure. Ripping the bandage away from her skin got a hiss out of her but he was immediately entranced by the revealed flesh; the mark of fire on her was a thing of beauty and when he met her gaze to share his thoughts, he decided that the burn wasn’t responsible for that. He had always known that she was attractive, a bit too pure for his tastes, but now standing here with a burn, giving him that smouldering look from under her lashes, he found himself breathless. She understood him. She knew how he felt and she understood him more than anyone he had ever met and he was mostly certain she felt the same way.

She had apparently tired of flickering her eyes between his gaze and his lips, rising to meet his mouth with her own in a heated kiss; arms winding around his neck, her flesh freezing but her passion a fire of its own, he allowed himself to return the embrace, hot handles settling on her waist and holding tightly. He pulled her away after a moment, eyes seeking hers to try to communicate wordlessly, to ask if this was what she wanted, if she was sure because he wasn’t a hero – he wouldn’t be checking again, thieves didn’t usually ask permission at all but he had always been taught that a woman was to be respected.

In that moment, it was the first time Mick Rory saw something more beautiful than a flame – because the flames had revealed Caitlin Snow for who she was – and he just couldn’t get enough.


End file.
